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Gutenberg-Ready

Gutenberg is the new content editor in WordPress that uses blocks to create all types of content that makes writing rich posts effortless. These content blocks allow users to create website content in more intuitive and easier way.

Veganos theme is completely built using the new WordPress editor. We’ve added unique styles for default editor blocks such as images, columns, videos, galleries, quotes, and more. It also supports full-width alignment styles for the content that spans to the full width of the page and also some additional colors.

Atomic Blocks, Block Gallery and Otter Blocks Integration

The theme integrates well with the free Atomic Blocks, Block Gallery and Otter Blocks plugins, which are adding more content blocks such as user profiles, notices, buttons, beautiful galleries and more to the new Gutenberg editor.

Theme Options

Veganos theme offers several useful theme options like blog options, hero image option, copyright and color.

• Logo Upload: Replace the site title & tagline with a logo of your choice.
• Theme Options:
  • Hero Image: change hero image opacity
  • Blog Options: change the post display, hide post meta and author bio
  • Copyright: change the default copyright text or hide it
• Colors: change the main accent color of the theme (green)

Shop

If you need to build an online store Veganos theme has a style support for the BigCommerce plugin. Customize your site, manage shipping and payments, and list your products on Amazon, Ebay, and Facebook with the #1 ecommerce platform. Try it free, no credit card required.

WPML Compatible

Veganos is approved and fully compatible with hugely popular WPML multilingual plugin for WordPress. Find more about it here.

First of all, thank you for taking your time for the interview Roni. Let’s get to know you better. Could you tell us a bit about your background and how your life led you to WordPress?

Thanks a lot, I’m flattered about all this. Not used to interviews, really, but I’ll try :). I’m Roni, but some people call me Rolle, it’s my nickname that stuck, also my Twitter handle, @rolle. I’m more of a front-end developer which means my strong points are CSS (SASS), HTML and JS and I love putting layouts together via these languages. I know my PHP and servers and do a bit graphic designing if I must so I guess you could call me a “Full stack developer” for that reason.

What led me to WordPress? It’s quite a long story, to be honest. My father has been computer hobbyist since the 80s; he was one of the first Finnish people who purchased a “home computer.” I was born in the 1988 and was hooked right from the start. My first memories of computers were when I was four years old, right around the time’s modem Internet was brought to homes.

At first, it was all about fiddling with the computer parts and playing games, but very soon I realized it’s more fun to do stuff on the Internet. So I started creating my first “home page” in 1998. I was ten years old. Until 2000 I had released my comics, poems, writings and even some gif and simple JS based games online.

I have always loved writing so. First I had a simple journal I wrote in between HTML code. When I grew older, I realized it needs to be easier, so I started to look for “web software” or some sorts for that purpose. We didn’t have “Content Management System” at the time. I found CuteNews which initial release was in 2002. It wasn’t bad but not good either. Didn’t know for the better.

Used cutenews for years, then my online friends released their websites and found out WordPress. It was actually some “Admin login” link which lead me to the big W-logo-powered login page as we know as wp-login nowadays when I saw it was made with WordPress. The version was 2.0 and I have used WordPress ever since.

It was about blogging and making blog themes for myself many years, only later professionally.

How did you start your career? Do you have some formal education related to coding or design?

I didn’t have any formal education related to coding websites. Nothing. I learned everything by myself, tried things on daily basis. I didn’t have friends much, that’s for sure, hah.

I was hooked on websites in very early age as I told you, previously and family friends and other people started to notice that although didn’t advertise myself in any way. That lead to some projects I made for companies my relatives ran and earned some pocket money that way as a schoolboy. That was the start of my freelance career.

Later I got “real job” and put my freelancer career on hold. Didn’t actually use WordPress yet professionally when did freelancer gigs, it was the time when HTML + CSS only was sufficient. Small companies (or coders, or myself for that matter) didn’t realize they could easily make admin interfaces or use “a blogger platform” like WordPress for editing content that time.

In my first real work, we didn’t use WordPress at all but coded SaaS software. After my real job experience, I started seeing WordPress everywhere. It was from 2010 to 2012. I felt my talents go to waste when coding third party, closed software, as I always wanted to do WordPress. I started to think about forming my own company after saw my work wasn’t that rewarding. It was more of a bulk-job I had to do because salesmen sell and bosses tell me what to do. Not much freedom or openness in that job.

In 2013 my dream became true and Digitoimisto Dude (“Dude – the Digital agency”) was born. It started fast and the first year went better I expected. This May we have been running non-stop for five years, that feels good.

In 2013 my dream became true and Digitoimisto Dude (“Dude – the Digital agency”) was born.
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Did you know exactly what you wanted to be when you grow up ;)?

Not really, never thought about it, because I always loved what I was doing. Before I understood computers that much I thought I was going to be some kind of author or draftsman. I was always writing things or doodling stuff as a child, started when I turned 6. I drew a lot of comics and wrote a lot of texts, poems, journals, etc. but didn’t really think about it what I wanted to be. My father was a railroad engine driver, that felt quite far for me. Also, I think he didn’t like his work that much, we had computers in common.

You are full stack developer and founder of Digitoimisto Dude Oy. Can you tell us what is Digitoimisto Dude Oy and the story behind it? How is Digitoimisto Dude Oy different from other digital agencies?

Not very big story behind my company and I can only explain this from my own perspective. As I explained, I was freelancer for many years. I could have continued on that path, but working alone was never my thing. I had to create graphics from logo design to backand frontend coding and communicate, bill, DO everything myself. It was really wearing me out.

Was unemployed for a while and then applied for a job and got it. It was my first real job in the sense of making something for the web, I was around 20 at the time. In that job I learned a lot, but most of anything I learned how not to do things. Not going to open that position that carefully, but in that job I found a friend who I consider as one of the best graphic designers so I started to think carefully about forming my own company. We wanted more freedom. And to do things better. We wanted to feel happy when waking up to work, not frustrated or already in bad mood.

After careful contemplation we did it. First, we suggested subcontracting deal to our former employer and we got it. Then we invested our holiday money (we didn’t have many holidays because of over-working) to our new company. So not many risks were involved. First months we did almost everything regarding our skills, because didn’t know about the future and entrepreneurship was rather new, naturally. Soon we noticed we don’t need subcontracting anymore and we have our own customers with WordPress. It was quite a fast realization that this business is profitable enough for two guys who do what is their passion.

In our small town Jyväskylä there were not many professional WordPress agencies at that time. Bigger agencies made stuff with their own CMS and I knew all the people from smaller and even some bigger WordPress agencies. Dude always did customized and open source, I guess that has always been the major difference from other digital agencies. When we really started WP, I started creating our stack, custom starter theme and embraced all the latest web development tools. I didn’t want to go the easy way, spent hundreds of hours and sleepless nights to get things right. As our GitHub say, we are “A boutique web design agency formed in 2013 in Jyväskylä, Finland.”.

We do everything bespoke, a boutique way. No quick solutions, but customized, easy to use WordPress sites per customer. Every customer is different so it’s important that every site is meaningful and so fast and easy to use in wp-admin that everyone can update all the images, icons, logos, text on the site without hassle. That’s where we are different from many others, I guess.

The name was supposed to be something of this nature, something that relates to open and flexible yet professional. One of our tonguein-cheek mottoes is “Professional craziness since 2013”, from one of our stickers. The name “dude” was actually invented by Sari who is the wife of my fellow co-founder Juha. We also noticed the domain dude.fi was available only because the earlier company named Dude changed their name and the domain happened to be released just when we formed the company. So good luck in many sense.

We wanted more freedom. We wanted to feel happy when waking up to work, not frustrated or already in bad mood.
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How do you find your clients or how they find you? Do you have some advice for the people that are just starting out with their own digital agency?

When we started there were two of us, now there are 6 (four in-house, one freelancer photographer and one freelancer front-end developer). We do not have any salesmen. I guess work speaks on its behalf and we get most of the customers via recommendations. Lots of them come via google as well since I blog a lot and our site is quite visible on the first results for Finnish audience. Third of the customers come from social media.

If you are starting your own digital agency, make sure you calculate really careful how much you will need monthly basis to support your (and your partners’) life. Basic entrepreneur’s ABC stuff. Secondly, you have to have the WHY you are forming a company, is it because you want more freedom or to do your own thing or is it because money.

I have to be honest, I didn’t think about succeeding that much when forming my own company, that wasn’t the point. In this scene, doing things should be the point. You should also be really aware of the fact you will have to do lots of work and even stay up nights if it comes to that. I’m not entrepreneur-consultant so this is all I can say.

I have to be honest, I didn’t think about succeeding that much when forming my own company, that wasn’t the point.
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If it’s not a secret please tell us a bit about how your working day looks like? How do you manage to balance work and family?

Of course it’s not a secret, I may have even blogged about that in Finnish. Managing balance was tricky at the beginning, but it got easier over the years. I’m really bad at mornings, I’m more of a nighthawk, so mornings are quite hard for me. Thank goodness I have kids and routine that pull me up from the bed.

Nowadays I wake up at around 6, take a coffee, watch a morning TV and stretch my legs. Then before 7, I wake up the kids and before 8 I take my 4-year-old son to daycare. My 8-year-old daughter walks to school by herself. After 8 I walk to our office and from 8 to 8.30 I’m already at work. At work, I drink another cup of coffee, browse some Twitter and try to “wake up” (as I said, I’m not a morning person, it takes some time, heh).

Around 9 I open my Todoist and see what I have to do and start doing things one by one. If it’s a “stuff day”, I do separate random tasks, if it’s a project day, I may code 3-4 hours, then lunch, then code hours more. If it’s a day where I’m supposed to pick up my son, then I stop working by 4 pm, if it’s not, I may work later, even up to 7 pm. Then depending on the day, I go home.

It was hard for me at first, but nowadays I don’t work at home if I’m not having a remote day. As an introvert I sometimes like to stay at home after taking my son to daycare, change to pyjamas and work from home. I do that occasionally, often one day per week.

As an entrepreneur, you are “working” 24/7 and I’m Inbox Zero fanatic, so of course, it’s hard to manage the balance between work and family. But I think it’s okay by this point. My wife and kids are happy and everything.

Let’s talk more about another interesting project of yours, Geeky Lifestyle. It is a new lifestyle blog for nerds and tech diggers. How and why did you start this blog? What are your future plans for this project?

It started as a holiday project, so it’s not really a priority for me. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t been bloggin in English as much as I would like, but in the other hand, I manage five blogs already in total.

Geeky Lifestyle is everything around geek things, it can be movies, electronics or coding. I plan to have more WordPress related blog posts in the future, now I only have one. Although blogging about Linux or tinkering gadgets is easier for me right now (not that timeconsuming). Will see.

When and why have you started contributing to WordPress and organizing a WordPress Jyväskylä Meetups?

I wasn’t active in the community before 2015 and there’s a good reason for that. I’m a full-blown introvert and suffer from GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) so it has always been hard for me to be social in real life. In Internet, it has never been a problem for me because I was grown to it. It’s so different because in the Net I do not have to think my appearances and I have more freedom and time to think what to say or how to react. Or be, in general.

In 2015 there was a first WordCamp in Finland. I decided to take part despite it being quite a step for me. When I went there, it felt everyone already knew me and surprisingly enough it didn’t feel that bad as I thought before the event.

Soon after I tweeted why we don’t have WordPress Meetups in Jyväskylä but didn’t know I was the one to organize them. My childhood friend and one of the original founders of another similar bespoke company MEOM, Natanael Sinisalo took a lead and we started the meetups together, he in charge. Later when Dude grew with one more coder Timi and Natte was moving more towards other opportunities in his life, I took more and more responsibility of the the Meetups of my city.

Today I’m hosting with Timi and Natanael Meetups in 2018 and we already have half of the year Meetup’s planned with speakers and schedule. Really happy about the progress in myself and in the community. A couple of years back I didn’t think I as an introvert could do this, but more you do it easier it gets. It’s still not effortless for me, I still need a day after meetups to get my energy back, but it’s really worth it.

After 2015 I attended the next one hosted in 2016 and after that, I’ve been in WordCamp Europe 2016 in Wien Austria, WordCamp Helsinki 2017 WordCamp Europe 2017 in Paris, France, WordCamp Jämsä 2017 and soon will be speaking at WordCamp Jyväskylä 2018. The latter is a huge deal for me! Can’t believe how long way I have come to this point.

What WordPress Community means to you?

I’m surprised on how much it means. I have learned many things professionally and with personal stuff. I notice in Finland people don’t talk much about issues like mental illness in WordPress Meetups but in WordCamp Europe people are more open about these things and I have found friends and support from that community as well. A good example is you Ana, we have had great chats since meeting in Wien.

So for me (in best) WordPress community is all about meeting friends, old or new. I’m not very good in big crowds, but feel free to come to talk to me even if I don’t talk to others. Beer helps, haha.

So for me (in best) WordPress community is all about meeting friends, old or new.
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We are moving now a little bit to your personal life, if you don’t mind ;). We talked a lot about the anxiety, panic attacks and mental health. Can you share with our readers a bit more about your experience with these? Do you think that the weather in Finland, especially during the winter plays a role in it? What have you learned from your experience with anxiety and do you have some advice on how to reduce stress and anxiety levels?

I don’t mind at all, as you can see! Like I already slipped earlier, I suffer from GAD which means, in short, I’m almost always anxious, often without any reason. It’s sometimes easier, sometimes real pain in the ass (sorry my french!). It’s bad especially when I’ve slept poorly which happens most of the time as vicious circles – when I’m anxious, I sleep poorly, when I sleep poorly, I’m more anxious…

I think GAD is part of the nature, character of who I am, because I’m very sensitive as a person and react too easily to things around me. I tend to overthink simple things which makes this worse. I suffered from depression when I was younger, but after getting solid job I went past it through therapy. I never liked meds, tried them out and it didn’t suit me, so I have just tried to survive without them with recognizing thinking patterns and exercising Mindfulness (staying in the moment, not in the past or future).

I think GAD is part of the nature, character of who I am, because I’m very sensitive as a person and react too easily to things around me.
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They say that even 7% of the Finnish people may suffer from GAD, which is about 350 000 people (of the population 5 million). The weather in Finland is one of the reasons for this because we have short days, cold and darkness about eight months every year. Sun is always the best when it comes to mood. But I really think it’s about character, experiences in childhood. It can be treated but it may be slow. I stopped therapy couple of years ago because the Finnish social system is quite complicated with this and I’m c
coping just well enough for me to pay the treatment in private sectors. I have generated my own mechanisms for toxic thought patterns.

They say that even 7% of the Finnish people may suffer from GAD, which is about 350 000 people (of the population 5 million).
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Developing my social skills through Meetups and WordCamps has been really hard for me because of GAD. But I have also found it to bring me good things. I have learned a lot of myself and about my thoughts. A good example is the pretty basic “social anxiety symptom” which goes as follows: I set up a meeting (it can be my dad or my best friend) and add it to my calendar. It should take place in two or more weeks time and it gets me so anxious while “waiting that to happen”. I start to think how awful it would be for me, to have to go out and meet that person, to get a grip and be social and happy. It’s kinda absurd to describe it like this, but it always goes to a point where I might cancel the meeting, because I feel so anxious about it. But I often ignore these thoughts and just “deal with it”, go and meet that person and forget about these thoughts while walking to the cafe or whatever. After the meeting, I remember these thoughts and I’m super relieved and even surprised how well it went and didn’t feel a one bad thing during it! When I remember this next time, how easy it was before, I rarely cancel any meetings nowadays. It teaches me to react to these better, although it’s still hard. Often I appoint new meetings in short time span just for these reasons – I don’t have time to think that much. “How about today?” is the best if I have room in the calendar.

So think less, do more things that make you happy. Or do more in general. Sorry my French again in advance, but I have learned to think myself “fuck it, just do it” and then just do it and stop thinking about it more. A good example is this forthcoming talk I’m giving in WordCamp Jyväskylä. I never thought I would give talks, but I have now given two in WordPress Meetups and soon one in WordCamp. Because “fuck it”, why not?

So think less, do more things that make you happy. Or do more in general.
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You told me you’re an introverted person. How hard it is for you to work in an agency that requires working with other people on a different projects? Do you have some advice for all the introverts out there?

I consider my colleques as friends, that’s very important. I can go and grab a beer with them. I also can do remotely once or twice a week if I feel like it. It’s easy to have meetings in small groups (two or three people) and I have learned to cope with it very well. Most of the stuff happens online, so working together is really not a big deal to me. As I explained before, part of my social skills come from Internet since I’ve grown with it.

I know many kinds of introverts. The most extreme ones are those you never see, you cannot call them, they only respond via IRC, IM email. The second type is the ones that tweet rarely or not at all, you might see live sometimes but may skip a meetup or two, who don’t talk much in groups, only face to face. The third type I guess is like me, who has learned to be more social and copes with it, seems social outside but wants to be alone on the inside. No matter how introverted you are, give life a chance. I’ve experienced I learn and develop myself more if I lay open to things and don’t do it just “because I feel like this”.

I consider my colleques as friends, that’s very important. I can go and grab a beer with them.
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What do you enjoy most about your life? What do u like to do in your free time?

Time with my family. Can’t live without sauna (almost every finn has a sauna at their home, we do as well), I take a good steam couple of days per week. Internet, naturally, trying new things, even in free time (mostly non-work related, even python software). Trying out new craft beer, writing to beer blog, going to beer events. Lots and lots of movies and series. Music – I listen a lot (last.fm says over 8000 different artists, mostly metal), I own a classical piano and play it sometimes, doing some composing if I feel like it. Retrogames (SNES, Atari, Amiga, MS-DOS, etc.), gadgets, sometimes investing to some Kickstarter campaigns. I don’t do sports much, but I like jogging. I used to parkour and snowboard, but no time nowadays. I’d like to travel more, but currently, my the financial situation in our family is not sufficient enough. Maybe someday. I do lots of things but I think that’s most of it.

Finally, here’s your chance to freestyle:). Write anything you think could be interesting or useful to our readers.

If you type these in your Terminal, you get a handy calculator:

echo -n "#" > pc
echo -n ! >> pc
echo "/usr/bin/perl" >> pc
echo "print eval(join(' ',@ARGV)).qq{
};" >> pc
chmod +x pc
sudo mv pc /usr/bin/


After this, just calculate things. 9 x 1000 would be:
pc 9*1000

PHOTOS CREDIT: Emmi Virtanen

Roni Laukkarinen

A full stack developer, founder of a WordPress agency Digitoimisto Dude, WordPress Jyväskylä Meetup group, Admin Labs website monitoring/status page startup, Geeky
Lifestyle blog and Streetgazer synthwave act

---

Twitter: @rolle | Website: Digitoimisto Dude | WordPress.org: Rolle

“Don’t underestimate the power of your vision to change the world. Whether that world is your office, your community, an industry or a global movement, you need to have a core belief that what you contribute can fundamentally change the paradigm or way of thinking about problems. “
– Leroy Hood, BrainyQuote

Intro

There was a young man from Kolkata, India named Jeet who wanted to share his frustrations about working in the WordPress world. He was struggling to get a decently paid work. Mostly, he was getting a low budget contracts from clients in America or Europe.

On the other side of the world, there was an American guy Topher who listened to him. He wanted to help but as an American, he didn’t have any real experience with the problems bothering Jeet and didn’t really know how to help him.

However, he had the idea to find other people who face similar problems, hear their stories, publish them and in that way help them connect with each other and the whole WordPress community. This in return opened up a whole new sea of possibilities for these people.

Here starts the amazing story behind HeroPress.

“If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.”
– Buddha, goodreads

Hi, I am Ana and today I will share my thoughts about HeroPress and the value of HeroPress for the community at large. My story with HeroPress started a few years ago when I find myself waiting impatiently for every new essay to go live. Different people, coming from different parts of the world sharing their life journeys. It was so inspiring to hear about different cultures, languages, work problems they are dealing with or even very deep, private things. I could identify myself with many of them and it was like “Oh, I am not the only one who experienced or had to deal with this and that problem…”.

So let’s start :).

Diversity

“Diversity really means becoming complete as human beings – all of us. We learn from each other. If you’re missing on that stage, we learn less. We all need to be on that stage.“
– Juan Felipe Herrera, BrainyQuote

Diversity is the key to the healthy world in which I want to live. Any community that wants to exist needs to let diversity to live and to embrace it. Sharing all these beautiful essays on HeroPress from different people is sharing diversity.

Writing and sharing information about the problems we have in our countries, with our jobs and how we overcame it, can help other people from the same country as well as other countries, to find a way to solve their problem. If you can help one person this way, touch her/his life than the value of it is enormous. It is a very important to see how things are working in different parts of the world. To see how some people struggle with things a lot of us take for granted or are fighting to survive because their country is in the middle of the war. Diversity makes us rich, it makes us complete, it teaches us a lot and encourages us to do better things.

People from all over the world, different cultures, languages, nations, genders…and with amazingly different stories are sharing one common thing and that is the WordPress community.

Diversity = HeroPress = connection, help and friendship = Community

Life Changer

Many times in my life I heard people saying that the most important is to get a job and if you like it or not doesn’t make much difference. If it’s true, that it’s not important to like what you do, why are so many people dissatisfied and unhappy?

I’ve been studying Civil Engineering and during all those years of study, I was sure that this is something I really don’t like. I somehow bought into this Mantra that says: “this is a way how things work and you have to get used to it”. The sooner you forget about some unconventional ideas about your future, the better. There are so many people that are or were in the same position. They wish to quit their job or study and do something they love but they just don’t know how, or even worse, they don’t even think it’s possible.

This is where the HeroPress plays a big role. Reading essays from real people about their struggles gives us the courage to do the same thing. We can hear and meet real people who, regardless of their, sometimes terrible circumstances, decided to quit their jobs, change their lives and make a living with WordPress…and they succeed.

Most often within our friends or family circuit, it is hard to get the approval of anything that is outside of the “ordinary”. They don’t want you to quit your job, they don’t want you to change. One reason is cause they like who you are and are afraid to lose that. The other reason is that they came to peace with “that’s how things work” mantra and simply can’t understand why you’d want something different that is so “impossible”, unpredictable and insecure.

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.“
– Robin Williams, BrainyQuote

Reading stories on HeroPress, from so many different people around the world, gives us inspiration and strength to push ourselves, to look beyond our everyday problems and try to make our dreams come true. It can have a huge impact and even change ones life completely.

HeroPress = Life Changer

Make a small impact on the community

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
― Jackie Robinson, BrainyQuote

One of my favorite HeroPress essays is one written by Maedah Batool, amazing girl who trained more than 700 women that are now earning a living with WordPress. She shared her knowledge to help them to work from home and make a living with WordPress. This is a beautiful example of how you can impact others lives and make a community grow. Maedah essay can inspire all of us to do something good for others, to make a small impact on other lives. Sharing our stories, passions and knowledge can change this world for better and connect people around the world.

HeroPress = impact other lives = stronger and better community

Mental Health

Today, a lot of people experience some kind of physical or mental health problems. Most people don’t talk about it, they are too shy or even think, something isn’t right with them. Usually, our families and friends don’t have time for “that kind of problems” and you end up alone. I had the luck to have Marko on my side when I was straggling big time with panic attacks, but many people don’t have someone by their side.

HeroPress can offer comfort and understanding to these people by letting them see how other people faced the same issues and managed to conquer them. There are a few people who opened their souls and wrote about their personal life and struggles with depressions, anxiety, suicidal thoughts etc. Sometimes we are simply not aware how much sharing and talking about the mental health can help someone. Just hearing and reading that other people have the same problem as you do, helps a lot. You don’t feel alone anymore!

2 years ago I got the message from Topher and he asked me if I would like to write an essay for the HeroPress. First, I was like, oh that’s a great honour, but I can’t. What can I share that is useful for other people? What can I tell about myself? I don’t know anything special. These were all thoughts that flew through my mind. However, after I talked with Topher I decided to do it, to finally open myself and do something I’ve never done before.

In this essay, I also shared my personal struggle with anxiety and panic attacks. The essay went live on the first day of WordCamp in Vienna and I met so many amazing people that wanted to talk about the anxiety and they opened up to me about it. We talked a lot about what we are struggling with and how we deal with it. Most of them don’t have people around them to understand what is going on or to just to have compassion and empathy for the problem they are having.

In the end, my point is that we all have a story to share that can help or inspire someone and that in itself is already a big value for the community. Sharing that kind of stories, from my personal experience, is not easy at all. You are opening yourself in front of many people and you might feel vulnerable but at the end, when you see you helped someone, it is well worth it.

HeroPress = talking about the mental health = connecting & helping people in community

Conclusion

Many times we all feel stuck, having our own problems, don’t know how to help ourselves, let alone others. HeroPress is a place where you can find a kick to push you forward. Inspiration on how to share knowledge, help others in the community, how to find a better job and motivation to fulfill your own dreams. It is a place where people around the world are connecting and making our world a better place.

“HeroPress isn’t about hero worship. The contributors are not the heroes we’re focused on. Everyone can be a hero to someone and everyone should be a hero to themselves. Our goal is to help anyone who wants to become their own hero.”
― Topher DeRosia

People from WordPress community about HeroPress

“HeroPress shows us that WordPress isn’t just any one story. It is stories of many people from many places. Some close to us and some very far away but just as important.”
Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko

“Many of us in the WordPress community know each other, but we rarely tell our stories. HeroPress is a critical force in sharing the deep personal connections that we all have to WordPress and open source software.”
Jeff Matson

“For me, HeroPress is such an incredible platform. It easily brings together people from all around the world with one thing in common, WordPress. And through those inspiring stories, it makes them better. It builds their power, motivation, and trust. And I’m not talking only about the people reading HeroPress, but the contributors as well. Topher has a great way of inspiring and building trust. Trust that you and everyone out there has an awesome story that needs to be told.”
Rodica Andronache

“By sharing the stories of the eccentrics, adventurerers, misfits, accidental geniuses, and everyday people who make up the WordPress community, HeroPress inspires readers to realise that whoever they are or whatever they do, this is a community where they are welcome.”
Heather Burns

“HeroPress shares WordPress stories from inspiring people all over the world. It allows us to witness other people being enabled to raise their voice through WordPress and to make a living, no matter who they are or where they are located. It’s so valuable to share these stories because they sometimes make a change in their reader’s lives.”
Carole Olinger

“HeroPress fosters compassion and acceptance in the WordPress community through the unique stories of people and their successes and challenges. Its strength is in showcasing some of the community’s incredible people by approaching tech topics from the human side, something we don’t always see in this special space of ours.”
Bob Dunn

“HeroPress is one of the most inspiring WordPress blogs that I have read. I have read so many stories of people like me who faced challenges and whose lives were empowered by WordPress. The stories let me know that I was not alone and that if WordPress could change their lives, it could change mine too. The stories in HeroPress really help to put a human face on the WordPress Community. When you read these stories, you can’t help but want to get involved with WordPress!”
Thabo Tswana

“HeroPress has brought so much to the WordPress community. It has allowed so many people to share their stories and has made me realize how immense and distinct the WordPress community actually is.”
Stacey Bartron

“I have contributed to Other Open Source Softwares but reading stories at HeroPress makes me strong and feel connected within WordPress Community. WordPress helped me to became an entrepreneur TODAY!”
Muhammad Adnan

“Each time I read a new post on HeroPress I’m touched by the stories and strength of people. Reading back older posts, it’s like reading through the history of WordPress. With it’s ups and downs. Valuable content that reflects the closeness and friendship in our community.”
Rian Rietveld

“HeroPress is really an inspirational to many of WordPressers around the globe. Sharing and reading experiences helps us feel more inclusive in the community and boost our morale for the betterment of the life. ”
Sakin Shrestha

“Value of HeroPress is Topher himself. Without him we would not have these great stories online.”
Sami Keijonen

“It’s an inspirational platform, which will motivate many to start their WordPress journey.”
Nisha Singh

“I remember the first day I saw a post on HeroPress. It was posted by one of my teammates, Hardeep. While I browsed the website, I saw that there were posts by other people that I know from the community and I spent a few hours reading some of their stories. Most of you probably think that you’ll only read stories of successful people. But what about the others? Each story has its lesson and we can learn something from each one. The most important thing is that one will discover that everyone has their struggles and solutions. From my point of view, the HeroPress website is a great source of motivation and learning.”
Madalin Milea

“HeroPress is an important outlet to remind the community of the trials and diversity of mind and situation people supporting WordPress face. Being able to share that and help others makes a world of difference.”
Tom J Nowell

“Topher is an incredible guy. His HeroPress initiative has helped many WordPress folks share their untold stories with the community. Maedah and I have both shared our essays to pen down our enthusiasm for WordPress and the open web. I think platforms like HeroPress are necessary especially for an open source community like WordPress — giving people the opportunity to express their lives, fears, successes, and everything in between does not only empower them but also inspire others to take note.”
Ahmad Awais & Maedah Batool

“HeroPress is valuable to the community because it’s filled with hopes, promises, and tales of dreams come true. In a world filled with bad news, HeroPress is consistently a beacon of positive energy.”
Jeff Chandler

At the end of this article, I just want to say big thanks to Topher for affecting our lives and making us better persons. Thank you for the HeroPress !! Also big thanks to all who shared their stories on HeroPress and who participated in this article, you rock :).

Feel free to share your views and thoughts in the comments below!

One of the best things about attending WordCamps is the opportunity to get to know people that share the same passion about WordPress. On one of the camps, I met Alexandra and we quickly became really good friends. So I already know how wonderful she is and I’m sure you’ll find that out soon as well. Let’s get to know her better.

First of all, thank you for taking your time for the interview. Let’s start with a peek into your life. Could you tell us a bit more about your background and how you started your journey with WordPress?

Firstly, thanks for the invitation and for the inspiring interview series that you are taking the time to put together! I’m a big fan of your themes and love spending time with you and Marko, even if that happens physically just a couple of times a year.

My first contact with WordPress was around the Duke & Ella era, when I was doing some blogging on dot com. Later on, I started blogging a bit more seriously, together with a friend, writing short and (presumably) funny stories about everyday things. At one point, we moved the blog to dot org and a whole new world revealed itself. I was amazed at how you could study and modify the code of different components. A few years later, I started freelancing in building websites (many of them on WordPress) and working on other web projects. In 2015, at 123FormBuilder, we launched our WordPress-dedicated product, CaptainForm, a very flexible and user-friendly plugin for building WordPress forms, which I’ve been happy to serve as a product manager. Apart from CaptainForm, I also do product management for our Salesforce-dedicated product and for our Enterprise vertical.

Did you know exactly what you wanted to be when you grow up ;)? When have you decided that WordPress will be your career?

I went with the flow most of the time. Even though I tend to be a control freak (currently trying to let go), I’ve never been too good at planning my life. Just kept an open mind, tried different things, gave 100% each time and it somehow turned out well. WordPress is just a part of what I do, I’d say that product development is my chosen path, at least for now. But WordPress is definitely the closest to my heart, thanks to the “ideology” that the product is built on and to the community. And to the swag at the events

What’s the story behind CaptainForm, how and when did you start this journey? What have you learned since then?

CaptainForm was launched two years ago, on the 5th of November 2015. At 123FormBuilder, we have different products derived for specific markets from the core product, which is a SaaS platform. In 2015, WordPress already had more than 20% market share, so launching a dedicated product was an obvious choice, strategically speaking. Even if CaptainForm is a child of 123FormBuilder, it is branded completely differently (with a superhero theme) and provides a lot of WordPress-specific functionality.

Probably the most important thing that I’ve learned is that the product is – or should be – a direct reflection of its community of users. I’ve always given great importance to user feedback and put myself in the user’s shoes, but the CaptainForm experience showed me first-hand what this really means. In short, we shouldn’t try to adapt our target users to a predefined product, but to adapt everything, from product UX to customer support, to the expectations of those users. We should be ready to have our own ideas and beliefs challenged to the core and to welcome change with an open heart. Let’s put it this way – the same level of temperature can be referred to as 25 Celsius degrees or as 77 Fahrenheit degrees and each can make little sense or perfect sense, depending on who you are addressing.

The product is – or should be – a direct reflection of its community of users.
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How important is customer support for your business? Can you share some advice on how to offer top-notch support to customers?

Customer support is crucial in my opinion. The resources invested in customer support vary a lot depending on how complex and how intuitive the product is. But there should always be somebody at the other end, to assist users or even to anticipate their needs. Most markets are very crowded, which makes it tough for a product to stand out. Also, the quick pace at which everything moves nowadays makes it so convenient to substitute human interaction with tech. Under these circumstances, good customer support can be a very powerful differentiator. And it is also a precious resource of user feedback.

I believe that top-notch customer support is based on two things: a strong product know-how and empathy. Try to imagine that the user’s issue, request or inquiry is your own and address it accordingly. But also prepare to scale this, so that volume doesn’t affect quality.

Try to imagine that the user’s issue, request or inquiry is your own and address it accordingly.
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I am very interested in the story behind the English learning platform RapidulDeEngleza.ro. Let us know a bit more about that project?

Rapidul de Engleza (or The English Express) is a platform that I built for Romanian learners of English. It is the most popular resource of this type in my home country. I started this project after I quit teaching English in class, when I switched to IT, as I still wanted to teach somehow. Teaching is a very rewarding experience to me – seeing that students are happy to have understood something that they’ll be able to use themselves from that point on.

This project was my baby for a few years and it allowed me to put teaching, creativity, initiative, passion, different technologies and human interaction together, in a mix that I will always remember with great enthusiasm. Nowadays, the platform is still alive, has good traffic and generates revenue, but unfortunately I haven’t been working on it actively for a while.

If it’s not a secret, please tell us how your working day looks like? How do you balance work and free time?

In regular weeks, I spend my working day mostly at the office, where we do the usual stuff – research and analysis, planning, debates, the actual implementation and testing, deliveries, internal meetings, calls with other stakeholders and so on. In the evenings and at weekends, I focus on personal projects, but I also take more and more time for the simple life – going to the market and talking to people, learning how to cook something or taking an unexpected trip away from technology. I used to try to make every minute “count”, but I think that the meaning of this changes in time

I used to try to make every minute “count”, but I think that the meaning of this changes
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How hard or easy is running your business in Romania?

There are good parts and bad parts. In what the bad parts are concerned, let’s say that Romania is unable to manage its resources responsibly. Both the public and the private sector are affected by poor management and personal interests. Of course, we all contribute to the perpetuation of this behaviour, but this goes deeper into how our nation ended up having an apathetic and malleable personality.

In what the good parts are concerned, as individuals, many of us are very capable people. We expect nothing from outside factors and learn to build a future for ourselves, in an honest, hard-working and efficient manner. From a business point of view and pragmatically speaking, the work force here is very skilled and it is cheap compared to Western countries.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Inspiration is everywhere, but it is my alone time when I get to process it. Irrespective of how busy a day is, I usually find at least half an hour to just sit and think without distractions. It’s then when I see the most reasonable solutions for that day’s issues and when I also get the best ideas to be explored.

How did you become a part of the WordPress community & how did you start speaking at WordCamps? Do you have a stage fright and if so how do you deal with it?

I became a part of the WordPress community soon after we launched CaptainForm. We wanted to promote the product, but – more importantly – to get a real feel of the community and to gather feedback. We started sponsoring WordCamps and I started speaking from the first WordCamp we attended, which was WordCamp Bratislava 2016. We wanted to go all in and to make the most out of each experience.

Stage fright wears off gradually and you start focusing more on the actual experience than on your “meta”-feelings about it. But yes, I still get it. When it happens, I try to see the bigger picture – in the grand scheme of things, my potential failure literally means nothing. Apart from this, I think it’s important to believe in what you’re saying and to have a good knowledge of it, so that you feel comfortable about it. Also, you should try to keep it valuable, yet light – don’t squeeze in too much information and, if possible, make people laugh. They’ll remember the key takeaways easier.

We started sponsoring WordCamps and I started speaking from the first WordCamp we attended.
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What does the WordPress Community mean to you?

It’s a community of smart, enthusiastic, kind and straightforward people. You don’t find that too often nowadays. I feel that the community pushes you to become a better person in a safe and warm environment. Not only in what WordPress skills are concerned, but also generally speaking. The spirit of the community is very much present online as well, but the best vibe can be found at WordCamps. There’s so much to learn from the people that you meet there and so many friends to be made. To me, WordCamps are a home away from home and the friends that I’ve made are people that I know I can always rely on.

I feel that the community pushes you to become a better person in a safe and warm environment.
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How hard was it to follow your dreams? What do you like the most about your way of living?

My biggest dreams are still ahead of me. Up to now, the journey has been quite diverse and fulfilling. I wouldn’t say there was something particularly difficult – I think it’s just about constantly getting out of your comfort zone, listening to what your mind and body are telling you and trusting your gut feeling.

About my way of living, what I like the most is the fact that I can find passion and purpose in most of the things that I do and that I get to do it together with some great people. I also like the fact that, when it feels like it’s not a good day for science, so to speak, I can skip that day’s schedule and do something else instead. And I like life’s little surprises – for instance, travelling to WordCamps, I got to see our national tennis player and the current number 1 WTA, Simona Halep, for my first and only time at the Miami Open, right across the pond.

What do you like to do in your free time except riding a bicycle ;)?

It depends on the season – I do more sports in summer and read more in winter. I get easily hooked on any type of puzzle anytime and I never miss singing a song when there’s some karaoke around And yes, I love riding the bicycle! Other than that, my hobbies come and go. As I was mentioning before, I’m currently trying to take a step back and to just enjoy the simple things – cooking, nature, visiting friends and so on.

Is there anyone that you could name that had a major influence on your life?

I’ve been blessed with many people that I look up to. As the quickest examples that come to mind, I’ve only found out at WordCamp Bucharest this October what a great digital media professional and mother of three Ivana Cirkovic is or what a beautiful project, ShoeBox, Val Vesa has been working on for the past 11 years. Such examples are very inspiring to me.

In terms of major influence, there is one person that set me on my current path – Radu Ticiu, at that point director of the Software Business Incubator in Timisoara, Romania. I once took an internship at the incubator, mostly by accident (I was actually studying PR, not IT), and a few years later he put me in contact with Florin and Tudor, the co-founders of 123FormBuilder. Currently, among other things, Radu is helping children explore their creativity, enthusiasm and potential in the IT field.

Do you have a dream that you would love to apply to the real world?

I would love to open an English learning center. To create a cozy environment, craft the learning material and work with students creatively.

What are your plans for the future? Any new adventures planned in your life?

I plan to settle down a bit and focus more on my personal life. Professionally speaking, I’m not aware of any new adventure at the moment – they tend to come spontaneously

Finally, here’s your chance to freestyle :). Write anything you think could be interesting or useful to our readers.

I would like to suggest this tool for relaxation – Typing Club

Thanks, Ana, for being such a committed and warm-hearted person, and big hugs two both of you and to the community!

Alexandra Draghici

A Product Owner @CaptainFormWP, #WordPress form builder. Founder of English #learning platform RapidulDeEngleza.ro.

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Twitter: @lxdraghici | Website: CaptainForm | WordPress.tv: Alexandra Draghici

This is why I decided to share with you some nice photos that I started to take for our own themes. These photos can be used for any purpose, personal or commercial. Each photo is licensed under CC0, which means you can use them commercially for free and they are compatible with the GPL license which is the license WordPress uses. I’ll be adding more photos in the future, so stay tuned ;).

Free CC0 Stock Photos compatible with GPL license
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If you like these photos and find them useful please share with your friends. Happy downloading!

Zeko Lite is a wonderfully designed, clean and responsive charity WordPress theme. This theme demo is dedicated to raising awareness that animals are sentient beings and should be treated as such. This is often not the case and we still witness a huge amount of unneeded cruelty towards our fellow earthlings. They deserve better!

Check out the Zeko Lite video review here.

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First of all, thank you for taking your time for the interview. Let’s take a peek into your life :). Could you tell us a bit more about your background and how did you discover WordPress?

No problem. Sorry, it took so long to answer it.

In the early 2000s, it was normal for everyone to build their own custom CMS but if you weren’t a developer yourself than you had to pick from some that were available for free, such as Joomla and later WordPress. As I was working in a company for a few years that used Joomla primarily, I got used to the way things work there, but I didn’t like it. The main problem was that I couldn’t make my layouts semantic, due to the complexity and the current state of Joomla themes. Since Emanuel was using WordPress heavily at the time and spoke very highly of it, I was sold on it.

I used WordPress on several projects, but since my PHP knowledge was (and still is) limited, you could say I’m a Stack Exchange developer — copying chunks of code from Codex or other sites online and keeping my fingers crossed that it works. Good thing I’m a designer.

How did you start your career path? Did you know exactly what you wanted to be when you grow up ;)?

My child hood dreams were to pursue a career in science — either astronomy, physics, engineering (influenced by Star Trek). I thought I wasn’t smart enough for academia or didn’t have the educational background for any of these — and I think I was probably too lazy for that. I loved playing games though; I loved building things with my hands — either digital things (mods, game levels etc.) or physical things (mostly things with wood).

My design career started more than 15 years ago when my older brother Emanuel, showed me how to work in CorelDRAW 9 and later Photoshop. Even a few basic things like gradients or editing shapes made me dream about possibilities that computer graphics offer. I was (and still am) a science–fiction enthusiast and watching Star Trek would inspire me to design similar things by myself. I experimented with 3D Studio Max and 3D modeling, but eventually, I would continue using Photoshop primarily for creating digital graphics (textures, images etc.).

In order to be able to present my work on the internet, I learned HTML and CSS. At the time, I used FrontPage 98 to build my website using table layouts. Over time, as the web standards movement started gaining momentum, I also jumped on the train and started doing websites properly, separating structure and styles.

I wanted to design things. I was working in various fields of design (branding, print, digital…) and the vast experience I got shaped me in the designer I am today.

Together with your brother Emanuel, you co–founded the Blagonic Brothers WordPress agency in Croatia. Can you share with our readers a few interesting things about Blagonic Brothers? When & how did you start your business? In what way did it change your lives?

The first thing and the most obvious is — there is only two of us, and we are brothers. We like to say that we run a family agency. We started by combining our knowledge, experience, and networking together into a single brand. We branded ourselves as an agency, but we weren’t interested in quantity, only quality. As our network and visibility grew stronger, we had more project inquiries. We started bringing other people into the company, and we grew to seven people at one point. We underestimated ourselves.

Emanuel and I are both multidisciplinary designers and are quite organised and effective in our work. As we had more people and more levels of communication, we eventually started being project managers instead of designers. By wanting to deliver top–notch projects we would often spend extra time to make sure everything is taken care of — which, considering that more people were working on the project, wasn’t cost effective. It would work if we were only two, but more people means more noise. Not everyone can manage themselves, and not everyone can work remotely. We assumed wrong things (based on ourselves) and failed. We also learned much from our mistakes.

It certainly did change our lives. Although I learned a lot of things like managing people, projects, clients… I also needed a year or two after that to recover emotionally and financially. Emanuel and me are both individuals with strong opinions and we couldn’t work on projects or people who didn’t care about same things as we do. We are just too passionate and too emotional to not care about things we produce.

We are just too passionate and too emotional to not care about things we produce.
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You pay a lot of attention to building interfaces that are usable and accessible to all. Can you describe your workflow and how do you present it to your clients?

Being a part of the web standards movement during the 2000s made me aware of problems people had using poorly built websites and appreciate things like usability and accessibility. As a designer who does HTML/CSS as well, I can appreciate a simple but functional design. I’m all for minimalism, not because it’s a current trend but because it forces designers to think what is truly necessary for the project to achieve a goal.

While talking with clients I always put myself in the role of people using the product or a website and advocate their rights. If you put it like that, simple to use interface, basic usability and accessibility will always be high on your priority list.

While talking with clients I always put myself in the role of people using the product or a website and advocate their rights.
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Is there one special project that you are particularly proud of and why?

One of the recent projects that I’m most proud is all the work that our design team did at WordCamp Europe 2017. I think we did a good job on the website, new theme, branding and all sort of design assets but the biggest lesson for me was that we are all different. We have different backgrounds, and we see things differently. Working within such talented team made me appreciate different perspectives. In fact, the experience was so rewarding, that I am happy to do it again for WordCamp Europe 2018 where I’ll be leading the design team.

How hard is running a WordPress agency in Croatia? If you could go back in time, is there anything you would like to change in your journey?

I probably answered this question partially above. While we were working on one of our company projects, we didn’t realise in time that we took the wrong approach. This made us lose valuable time and money. I would force myself to not wait for too long before making hard choices. A hard choice can be stepping outside of your comfort zone or saying no to something. Having clear goals helps.

A hard choice can be stepping outside of your comfort zone or saying no to something.
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Would you have some advices for those who are just starting with the WordPress business? Do you have some special advice for developers in Croatia? I know from my own experience how most simple things can be quite difficult in our country.

Running any type of agency takes time and effort. The good thing is there is plenty of work in the WordPress ecosystem that you can fit in and leave your mark.

Hiring the right people is also not always easy and can bring you down. If you aspire to work with international clients than you have to think in those terms — even if you are hiring locally. Company culture is extremely important and it’s a priority that all your employees are on the same page regarding vision and direction. We alwayes tried to surround ourselves with people who would outgrow our small company and do great things after. We tried to offer opportunities which we would like to receive ourselves if we were in the same position. We even started doing custom hiring pages (before it was cool) in order to attract that talent and stand out.

It’s not that easy though. You have to trust people you work with. If everyone is not working in company’s best interest than it’s going to be really hard to accomplish that goal. But it goes both ways — the company has to trust its employees as well.

Be transparent in your decisions. Aspire to be a better communicator. Practice empathy. Lead by example.

Be transparent in your decisions. Aspire to be a better communicator. Practice empathy.
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Where do you find your inspiration?

I find inspiration all around me. Cheesy answer but it is true. When you use a product or a service, and it feels good. When you get immersed in a story of a video game or watch a movie that changes your perspective on things. When you talk with someone, who shares his ideas and experiences which make you look on the problem with a fresh pair of eyes.

What do you think about WordCamps and how are WordCamps beneficial for the people? Is there a strong WordPress community in Croatia?

WordCamps are great and inclusive events. Opportunity to meet new people and learn new things. Croatia has a yearly WordCamp and number of meetups throughout the year (mostly in Zagreb though). The community is diverse, and we have several big agencies working with WordPress primarily. The community is strong in that sense.

I feel there is room for improvement. I think most people don’t understand what’s the point of volunteering or doing something for free. They see that as a wasted opportunity but it’s quite the opposite. I would love to see our community grow further, in the sense of more meetups or conference organisers, open source contributors… But we’ll get there in time.

How did you become a part of the WordPress community & how did you involve yourself in organizing WordCamp Croatia? What does WordPress Community mean to you?

You could say I officially decided to become a part of the community after visiting WordCamp Europe 2013 in Leiden, Netherlands. I visited other conferences before that, but WordCamp Europe was specific in a sense that it was an affordable event with good content and interesting people. After that WordCamp, we kickstarted the Croatian community through regular meetups and over time WordCamps.

I’m currently leading the organising team for WordCamp Zagreb, our biggest WordCamp in Croatia so far. Emanuel handled WordCamp Rijeka and Ivan Blagdan WordCamp Split — I wanted to step up as well. There are several reasons I am dedicating my time for this conference. I think everyone benefiting from the community should return something back, regardless of their skill or free time. By volunteering my time I can learn new things, as well as help others in the community. It’s really inspiring to see people around you and their path to success over time — how they went to find better jobs and live a happier life partially thanks to our community and networking it offers.

WordPress community (and open source community in general) helped me expand my circle of friends and role models. The set of values that our community promotes is key to meeting diverse and interesting people — which is important to me.

WordPress community (and open source community in general) helped me expand my circle of friends and role models.
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How hard was to follow your dreams? Very often our friends and families find this way of living not so secure or “normal” and tend to push away from such careers. How did you manage to make it your own way? Do you have some practical advices for our readers?

The biggest problem for most people is not pursuing your dreams, but dealing with the decision what dream to pursue. I wanted to create things as a kid. The design was just one of possible career paths. As I dug deeper, I had to specialise in the specific area of design. Do I want to do graphic design or web design? Later as I got more experienced with web design, I kept asking myself: do I want to improve my front–end skills or design skills. And so on, every few years I have doubts whether I’m pursuing my dream. It’s not easy to deal with.

In the end, I just end up asking myself questions. Am I happy with what I am doing currently? If not, how can I change it, improve it? I think it’s important to look at things from a different perspective every once in a while. Life is complicated. Sometimes unexpected things happen and you can’t do anything about it. And that’s perfectly fine, just play the game to the best of your abilities.

What I have learned over time is that everyone is different. We tend to look people around us, keep thinking how successful or happy they are. How they earn a lot of money or have a job you would want for yourself. The truth is — we are all different and you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to others to see if you are successful. The only thing that matters in the end is if you are happy. I know I am.

That being said, it’s great to have role models who inspire you to do your best work or to be the best person you can be. I have been lucky to surround myself with a lot of people, friends, mentors and role models who helped me become the person I am today.

The only thing that matters in the end is if you are happy.
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Do you see your future in Croatia or you want to move and explore some other possibilities?

As I get older, I don’t see myself living in Croatia. I would like to experience life in a different country, explore different cultures and new experiences. Croatia is a beautiful country nature–wise but it seems a shame to spend my whole life in one place. One of the places my partner Ana and I have our eyes on is United Kingdom or Ireland.

We are moving now a little bit to your personal life if you don’t mind ;). In April 2015 you decided to make some big changes in your life and you started working with a personal trainer to get yourself in better shape. Is there a special reason that motivated you to do this?

I felt I should take better care of myself. My situation was quite stressful at the time and I didn’t feel I was at my best. I had a steady income and I was working on some projects that weren’t that challenging, so I decided to spend that extra time and energy by focusing on my well being and creating better habits. Eating and exercise habits mostly. That was the first step, everything after that was easier. It was important for me to have a good work–life balance (if there even is such a thing).

I know that your favourite sport is running and that you already ran a marathon. Congrats on all achievements you made through this journey, respect! Can you tell me what role do running and marathon have in your life and why?

Thank you. The funny thing about running is there is always someone you can aspire to. When I ran my first 10K, I thought running 21K or even a full marathon is impossible. I was looking as people crossed the finish line after running 42 kilometers. It was surreal. But I was motivated and I decided that I will run a half marathon. It was easier than expected. Marathon was the only logical step. I’ll be honest — I was scared but it was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.

When I talk to people, they say I’m modest when I say that running a marathon is not a big deal. And how can it be? People run for 50 or 100 kilometers, and even they don’t brag about it. From our perspective, it’s not a big deal, but for other people, it can be inspiring. Running a marathon represents one of my life achievements, the one I trained for hard and accomplished. If you asked me 2 years ago, I would say it was impossible and still — here we are. That’s probably life in a nutshell. If you want something badly — you will get it if you work hard for it. Today I try to keep myself in shape by running, and while there are times when I’m not in the mood to run, I find that kind of activity perfect to clear and sort my thoughts.

What do you like to do in your free time?

When I want to relax, I usually play games on PlayStation (I never thought I’d say this, but I’m a PC gamer turned console). The level of details and immersive-ness today’s games have is astonishing. I find inspiration by playing games. Other than that, I just try to get out of the house as much as possible. Hiking, walking, running… I love to travel and WordCamps provide a great excuse to travel.

What are your plans for the future?

My biggest plan is to continue growing professionally and personally. I’m on the lookout for interesting job and project opportunities which can accommodate that growth. I’ll continue speaking at conferences since that puts me out of my comfort zone. On a personal level, I’m hoping to get that marathon under 4 hours and try a triathlon.

Finally, here’s your chance to freestyle:). Write anything you think could be interesting or useful to our readers.

Did you read the whole interview or are you looking for a quick advice? Whatever the answer, here is a quick tip — surround yourself with positive people with can–do attitudes. Your life will improve significantly after that.

Surround yourself with positive people with can–do attitudes. Your life will improve significantly after that.
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I’d like to thank you, Ana, for finding the time to keep the interviews going. I really enjoy reading them, as I am sure many do.

Lucijan Blagonic

A (front–end) Designer. Also Gamer. And Stargazer. ABBA fan.

Twitter: @lblagonic | Website: Lucijan Blagonic | WordPress.tv: Lucijan Blagonic

First of all, thank you for taking your time for the interview. Let’s get to know you better. Could you tell us a bit more about your background and how your life led you to WordPress?

Hey Ana, thanks for having me – it is an honour to be part of your interview series, something I have enjoyed so much reading in the past, getting to know all these amazing people. First of all, I’d like to say that being part of WordPress community is an incredible experience and I don’t find myself that “important”. But, it is important for me to be part of it and I see it as an opportunity to help others and learn a lot doing so.

I was a journalist and later a designer, and my first contact with WordPress was when I searched for a CMS that I could work with easily – as I was not a developer back then. And this is where WordPress helped me – to get my ideas into action. Everything in my life is a journey – something I really enjoy: learning new things, meeting new people, helping others as much as I can. In the past, I was heavily involved in projects that helped the non-government sector in Croatia, open source and design community. I enjoy teaching others the things I learnt and to help them not to make the mistakes I made.

Everything in my life is a journey – something I really enjoy: learning new things, meeting new people, helping others as much as I can.
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How hard or easy was to choose what you wanted to do when you grow up :)?

Well, looking from today’s perspective I wouldn’t say it was hard. I had my share of ups and downs, as I suppose all of us do. I didn’t know what I wanted to be but I knew what I didn’t want to become – a person dissatisfied with his job. And I feel so lucky that for the past 17 years I had the opportunity to influence others while working in an industry I love and believe in.

You and your brother Lucijan founded the Blagonic Brothers WordPress agency in Croatia. Can you tell us a bit more about the experience working at your agency? What have you learned from that experience?

Actually, Blagonic Brothers started as a small design manufacture, where we worked with the specific type of clients – the one that searched for “perfection” (laughs). Back then, and I think it was 2009 or 2010, we went on our own, heavily invested in education, visited so many design conferences from the Netherlands to Germany and Italy, and started having talks on Croatian design conferences.

From today’s perspective, working for ourselves is still one of the best times we had – with crazy working hours while having so much fun doing the job we love. We worked with different clients that eventually became our friends and partners. We learned that anything is possible as long as you believe in it and we definitely learned that having high standards when it comes to client relationship and work produces comes with a cost, but it is the right way to go.

What is your mission with Blagonic Brothers agency? How are u different from other agencies? How hard or easy was to build the WordPress agency in Croatia?

We didn’t see ourselves as a WordPress agency in the early days, but people started to see us like that. That mostly came because of our involvement in the industry – from talking about WordPress, writing articles about it and generally speaking – promoting open source as a movement.

I think we just do things differently, don’t know. (laughs) Both Lucijan and me are very proactive, we were one of the first agencies to start doing responsive websites at no extra cost – actually, we were asking for extra budget if a client wanted to do a “desktop only” website. This way we showed them that we’re moving forward and so should they. Our approach is that we don’t want to have clients but rather partners. If both a client and us are on the same page, we have same expectations and if we believe in the same things – we can then help end users. We are not picky about clients, but we don’t work with clients that are not “compatible” with us, ethically speaking. Those clients might be a political party, a company that doesn’t respect their users and so on. As we really feel that our work matters, our approach must be the same. Personally, I like to call it “ethical design”.

From today’s perspective, working for ourselves is still one of the best times we had.
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Can you please share with us the story behind the special project for the city of Rijeka? You had a talk at WordCamp London titled “Can WordPress change the political transparency of an entire country?”. Well, from your experience, can it?

A couple of years ago the city of Rijeka—the third largest city in Croatia—approached us to develop a website on WordPress. Years later we started to work with them, not to develop their own website but to build a platform that other cities can use if they want to work on better transparency. In the WordPress theme we built tools that city officials can use to publish documents and other informations that will help make the local government more transparent. Information like budget, city council and councillor questions, citizen information, phone numbers etc. – can now be found in one place. This makes the city more transparent to its citizens and it can serve them better.
All that we learnt in that process will soon be available to other cities in Croatia (and the region), so they can use it to build their own website at no extra cost. This can be a huge saving if you know that there are more than a hundred cities in Croatia, and they usually spend at least 5.000€ for a website.

To answer your question – yes, we can change the transparency of an entire country, but first, we should change ourselves.

Yes, we can change the transparency of an entire country, but first, we should change ourselves.
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How hard was working on such a big project for the city of Rijeka? If you could go back in time, is there anything you would like to change in that journey?

Personally, I invested much more time and money than I would need to working on a client project, but some things you can’t buy with money. In the end, I was happier working on this project than I would be if I worked on a client project. During the project, I felt like doing something that can benefit not only myself and the city of Rijeka, but the public in general and that is something that keeps me going. It’s same when working with WordPress communities – we get a lot of questions—I get a lot of questions—about organising events, communicating events etc., and I (think that I) never left any question unanswered.

I don’t think I would change anything though. I knew it will be a lot of work, much more than I initially anticipated but in the end, I saw it as an opportunity to work on something that can make a change.

Let’s talk about the WordCamp community, another love of yours. How did Croatian WordPress community start?

Like many other communities, we officially started after the first WordCamp Europe in Leiden. That’s where I met Milan Ivanović, now a good friend. A couple of us went to the Netherlands (Lucijan Blagonic and Zoran Ugrina, not sure about other names though) and on our way back we started talking about “what can we do to kick-start Croatian WordPress community”.

We didn’t know who else was working with WordPress, so we started with an informal event called “WordPress Coffee”. And it was huge, 30 people from all over Croatia gathered in Zagreb. And not only from Croatia, this is where I met (now another good friend) Tomaž Zaman from Slovenia, other people from Croatia like Jurica Zuanović (who is GTE for Croatian language), Goran Šerić, and more. These are the people who are part of our ever-growing community.

Like many other communities, we officially started after the first WordCamp Europe in Leiden. That’s where I met Milan Ivanović, now a good friend.
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You were a lead organiser of WordCamp Croatia, congrats. How hard was to organise a WordCamp in Croatia and do you have some tips for the future WordCamp organisers?

I wouldn’t say it was hard. We followed the rules from WordPress’ community team. We started with a meetup. Then we started with meetups in other cities (after Zagreb which happens every two months, today we host occasional meetups in Split, Rijeka, Pula, and Virovitica). And then we decided to host a WordCamp. It was a decision from all of us from different cities, not to host a WordCamp in our capital Zagreb, although we could have more attendees there. We started with Rijeka and then Split for the second WordCamp and actually, this is the first year we will have a WordCamp in Zagreb, where we expect around 300 people.

This is the first year we will have a WordCamp in Zagreb, where we expect around 300 people.
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How hard was to follow your dreams? What do you like the most about your way of living?

I don’t think it’s hard as long as you don’t listen to others (laughs). The thing with others is that people constantly try to tell you what you need to do and how. It’s good to ask for advice but you have to make the decisions on your own. If you make mistakes, eventually, these are your mistakes and you learn from that.
So, I always tell people – ask for advice, talk with people, learn from their mistakes but in the end – make your own decision.

I don’t like to plan in advance. Naturally, there are some long-term plans, but my goal is to enjoy life to its fullest, and these days this means talking to a lot of people, meeting new cultures, trying to understand differences. This makes me a better person and eventually makes me very happy as I can share these experiences with my son. I can show him—although he’s just 4 years old—how to experience this world in a way that it was impossible 30 years ago. We can travel everywhere, everything is within our grasp – so many untold stories, so many experiences. I love it.

If you make mistakes, eventually, these are your mistakes and you learn from that.
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Do you have some advice for those who are just starting with WordPress business?

You will make mistakes as we all did, but try not to take it hard on yourself. The mistake is a mistake only if you don’t learn anything out of it.

If it’s not a secret, please tell us how your working day looks like? Do you have some tips on how to balance work and free time?

It depends. My brain goes from one thing to the other and sometimes I have problems concentrating on a task. Although I’m not a big fan of creating plans, I have my routine. I start with a coffee, go through tasks for the said day. I tried different things, but what helps me the most is to make a quick list of tasks for the next day. I wrote that on paper as I realised that by doing so – I feel more relaxed than if I did that on my computer (laughs). Other than that, I always write down things rather than try to remember, and I use Calendar a lot (which is synced with all of my devices).

It’s hard to balance free time as when you work as a freelancer from your home, the boundary between business and personal becomes blurry. What helps me are things that are happening at a time I cannot control. Being divorced, I can see my son Luka for every second weekend and on Thursday afternoons—something that is not enough for me, but I try to make most of it. With that in mind, I work around these fixed times. I also try to have some time off during weekends, and I’m not a slave of habits – so if I see there’s a beautiful day outside – I’ll just go out for a walk or a swim.

We are moving now a little bit to your personal life if you don’t mind ;). Beside WordPress & community, your biggest love is your son Luka. On your personal blog, you write a lot about your experience being a father and about your son. How and why did you decide to share that and what does it mean for you?

Yes, when Luka was born four years ago it completely rocked my world. He’s a bright and smart boy, I see a lot of empathy in him when he plays with others. Being a parent changes you in a way you cannot foresee before it happens. I don’t think I was prepared – nobody isn’t. This changed me, the way I look at things, the way I react. Seeing Luka I really want to do my best to make this world a better place for him, and for other kids.

When I was in high school we had to write a short essay about us “being the lost generation”. We were witnesses to a brutal war, people have been killed, we had thousands of refugees and this affected us. But I never felt like a lost generation.

You know me and we talked so many times about personal things, and you probably know that I believe in sharing experiences. I see these personal stories of mine as my stories and although there are things I won’t share, some experiences are worth sharing just because it will help others.

I had a lot of personal problems in the past few years and I talked a lot about them. People in Croatia (and the region) are afraid of talking about their problems, they see them as a personal failure. I don’t. As I said earlier – it’s a failure only if you don’t learn anything from it. The biggest reward is when I get approached by someone who had similar problems and they say “thank you for being honest and open minded – it helped me a lot”. I believe that you cannot change the world if you’re always within your comfort zone. Talking about these things is stepping out of my comfort zone and I see it—talking about it—as a selfish thing too, as it helps me a lot.

Seeing Luka I really want to do my best to make this world a better place for him, and for other kids.
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How do you balance your work and being Luka’s father? By the way, are you a Star Wars fan?:)

Ha! Why do you say that? Because I usually wear that t-shirt “Luke, I’m your father”? Well, that’s true – he is my son, so this makes me Darth Vader (laughs). Both Luka and me are Star Wars fans and you can see us play with the lightsaber (thanks, Ivan Brezak Brkan for the gift <3) – one time we almost crashed a TV.

So, how do I balance my work and being Luka’s father? My number one priority is to be a great father and work comes second. I enjoy both, of course, but being a father is just a different category. Influencing Luka, giving him advices and good examples and at the end – giving him the opportunity to make his own decisions, although being a small kid – is what is important to me. And to be honest, this bond we have makes me not only a better person, but it helps me be more creative, more open-minded – which eventually helps my work.

Do you have a role model or a person that had/have a major influence on your life?

Ana, that’s such a good question. I don’t know why nobody asked me that (well, at least I can’t remember it). We all have our own role models. My first role model is my brother. He is five years younger but different from me in so many ways. In the past, we didn’t get along (while growing up), but today we’re good friends and also business partners. The important thing is that we share the same values, ethics, morale – we believe in the same things and we help each other.

Other role models are people who eventually ended helping me in a way. Usually, they gave me the opportunity to be better. Domagoj Pavlešić was the first person who asked me to step up and start speaking publicly. Ivan Brezak Brkan was an inspiration, starting his own media company that now influences the entire region. Marko Dugonjić, one of the best Croatian designers gave me insights into his work process and ethics, and I’m grateful that we share the same values. Petya Raykovska, who I first met at WordCamp Croatia where she came to speak, influenced me with so much energy, that I simply started doing the same – sharing my experiences and my energy with others. I also talked with Petya about helping with the communication part for WordCamp Europe, and eventually I became part of the team, leading the communication team this year which proved as an incredible experience.

There are a lot other role models, people who I look up to—the entire WordCamp Europe 2017 organising team—it was an amazing opportunity to work with them and more importantly – to learn from them.

But what you have to learn, and I learned that while I was working as a journalist, is that it is ok to have role models but it is wrong to idolize them. A good role model will help you to be better yourself, it won’t give you shortcuts but will give you advices on how to achieve something you want. I like the proverb “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” and this is what I like to do myself – educating people is the way we should help make the world a better place.

I like the proverb “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”
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What do you like to do in your free time?

I like to travel. A lot. I usually travel around WordCamps. (laughs) So, when I wanted to travel to Thailand I searched if there’s a WordCamp happening there so I could travel around those dates. And this gave me the opportunity to get to know so many interesting new people. The other thing I like to do is hiking. To be honest, I didn’t hiked that much lately, primarily because I had to take it slow for almost two months after going through mononucleosis, but this is something I’m really looking forward doing in the future. So, if you happen to have a WordCamp in your city and some hiking/trail nearby – let me know (laughs).

Finally, here’s your chance to freestyle:). Write anything you think could be interesting or useful to our readers.

I want to congratulate you Ana, and what you do with your amazing charity themes. This is the approach I really appreciate and I think it is important that we can use our expertise and influence to make people’s lives better. Thank you for the interview and I’ll just say you do such a great job with them. Keep up the good work.

Emanuel Blagonic

A designer, WordPresser, activist, speaker and a father to his son Luka .

Twitter: @eblagonic | Website: Emanuel Blagonic | WordPress.tv: Emanuel Blagonic

First of all thank you both for taking your time for the interview. Let’s get to know you better :). Could you tell us a bit more about your background and how your life led you to WordPress?

Thank you so very much for this kind introduction. We are Ellen and Manuel. We are both from Germany, but live in New Zealand since about two years. We met in our hometown Stuttgart, right before we both went to university. After uni we wanted to work together, so we started to build our first websites for clients. Doing this we very fast discovered WordPress and in 2009 we also started our Elmastudio blog, so we were able to share everything we learned about web design and WordPress. The blog (at the time only in German language) got more and more popular over time and we soon built our first free WordPress themes for our blog readers.

How did you start your career? Do you have some formal education related to coding or design?

Not exactly, but we both studied design, Manuel industrial design and I studied communication design. The first website we build together was Manuels portfolio at the end of university. After this project we developed the dream to be able to work together after university, instead of looking for jobs individually. So we learned more and more about web design by watching tons of online tutorials and after Ellen had her diploma as well, we were able to take on our first small client projects as freelancers.

After this project we developed the dream to be able to work together after university, instead of looking for jobs individually.
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Can you share with our readers a few interesting things about Elmastudio. When & how did you start with your website? In what way did it change your lives?

Looking back we think the most important step for us was starting a blog on our Elmastudio website. So we switched our website from a portfolio/business type website to be mostly a blog. This way we gained a regular readership and people would find our blog posts via Google as well. This was the first turning point from being a client based web design business to be able to create and later sell WordPress themes. By switching Elmastudio in this direction, we also felt so much happier with our work. It gave us the freedom to create designs and websites we really loved ourselves, instead of having to create what an individual client would need for his or her website.

For our readers that are not familiar with your theme shop. Can you tell us what kind of themes you build and where do you get your inspiration from?

Our themes have a very minimal design approach and we really try to focus on design and go into much detail in our process there. We don’t want to just focus on a certain design trend. We want our designs to be able to look fresh for a long time, so theme users can be happy with a theme design for a long time as well.

We want our designs to be able to look fresh for a long time, so theme users can be happy with a theme design for a long time as well.
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We also try to make sure that the design is supporting the theme users content, instead of overshadowing it. Therefore we believe a minimal design approach works perfectly for our WordPress themes. We want the content to be able to create the character of the website.

What is the most challenging thing for you in theme creation process?

Over time we build some kind of our own workflow, so once we are started it gets easier to just follow this pattern. But the most challenging part is definitely the first step of creating a theme. Just getting started and making the decision to go in a certain direction is pretty difficult, since there are so many options and you have to decide on one or the other. After a few days, when the project is a little bit more defined, it gets a lot easier.

Is there one special theme that you are particularly proud of?

Of course we always like our latest themes the most, since we learn more and more with each theme. But at the moment, we are just proud scrolling trough our theme collection, seeing what we have worked on over the last years. Each theme comes with a little bit of history and it reminds us of a certain time in our lives. So to look back at this is kind of cool we think

Of course we always like our latest themes the most, since we learn more and more with each theme.
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You pay a lot of attention to the clean design and typography. Why is this so important for you? Can you share a few websites where people can learn about good typography in web design?

Yes of course, we love web design, since it really can bring somehow heart and soul into a website and with colors and especially with typography you can create a certain feel or emotion for a website. Some of our favorite typography websites are: ilovetypography.com and typewolf.com. The A Book Apart book “On Web Typography” is also a great recommendation.

How hard is running a theme business at the moment? What is your marketing strategy and how does it work for you?

As mentioned before, not wanting to please every single person looking for a WordPress theme is very important we think. Different people want totally different things out of a WordPress theme, so you have to focus on what you can do best. And the beauty of WordPress themes is that there are so many different approaches available, so the theme user can choose what theme or theme shop fits best for them. Besides that we don’t really have a marketing strategy other than just creating themes we would really love to use ourselves. This way creating WordPress themes is the most fun for us and if you have fun doing your work, you create the best results we believe.

Not wanting to please every single person looking for a WordPress theme is very important we think.
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Do you have some advices for those who are just starting with the theme business?

It’s difficult to give someone else advice, because everyone works so differently or is a different situation. But we think to have the most fun you can have creating a theme, is a very good advice. Also of course you need to look a little bit what others are doing to create up-to-date themes. But after you started with a theme, you shouldn’t look around so much, so that you can focus on your own work and create individual ideas that work for you.

I am so inspired by your creativity in theme development and passion you are bringing into blogging. What does it take to become a good blogger? Can you share your writing process with us?

Thank you so very much, this is so kind of you. I think a big part is that I want to share everything we learn or go through ourselves. It’s so much fun to be able to interact with like minded people, that you would otherwise never have the chance to talk to. I actually would love to write so much more on our blog, it’s a little bit difficult for me every time I’m in the middle of a theme coding process. What I like to do is to change up my normal work environment for writing. So I make myself a hot cup of tea or herbal coffee, take my laptop and move away from my work desk. If I create a relaxing environment the writing comes somewhat naturally. I also keep a Trello board with different topics and every time a blog post idea comes up, I quickly write it down to save it.

Can you describe your experience with selling themes on WordPress.com?

We always focused on selling WordPress themes on our own website first, but when we met some members of the WordPress.com theme team at the 2013 WordCamp in Tokyo by accident they invited us to join, so we thought why not try something new. At the moment we focus more on our own platform again, since it just gives us more freedom to include features we can’t use on WordPress.com. We also want to have the possibility to support eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce in our themes.

If it’s not a secret, tell us a bit how your working day looks like? Do you have some tips on how to balance work and free time?

Sure, of course We work from our home office and we love it, since gives us lots of freedom, but as everyone knows, who has ever done it, it’s also challenging to keep a good balance between free time and work.

We like to wake up pretty early and consciously spend the time before 9am without looking at any type of screen. So we have breakfast (we love banana smoothies) and I sometimes do Yoga (if I don’t have a Yoga class later in the day), go for a quick run or read a few pages of a book just for free time. At 9am we start to work until lunch at around 2pm. During this time I like to do any kind of creative work, since it’s my most productive time of the day.

Most days we stroll into our little town after lunch and do some shopping, sit in a café, take Yoga classes, Manuel goes to the gym or we go for a walk and most importantly just spend time outside. Starting from 5 or 6pm we start working again until the evening. We end our work days pretty late, mostly to have time during the day and because of the time difference with most our customers (since we are in New Zealand and most our customers are in Europe). So I do emails and spend time on Social Media to reply to questions during this time. We also work on theme designs and code or publish newsletters and new blog posts. Before ending the day we spend some time again away from the computer, which is very important for us to calm down and relax. This work routine is not super strict though, so if we have anything to do in the evenings, we start work earlier after lunch and so on.

We also love it, if not every work day is the same and sometimes when we are traveling for instance, it really boosts our creativity and motivation, although of course you don’t have as much time when you are on the road. But we feel it somehow clears up your brain and you have better ideas and are somehow more awake in your mind. So not being too strict to one routine is a great advice as well. But I really believe that everyone is different and should find a way that works best for them.

What do you think about WordCamps and how WordCamps are beneficial for the people? Any planned WordCamps you will attend soon?

We love WordCamps, I think they are amazing community events for people to come together and connect in person, who normally would just meet online. We been to a few WordCamps, but would love to attend more. Unfortunately we missed the WordCamp in Berlin this year and also the WordCamp Europe, we would have loved to go to. We hope we can attend next year We love to visit WordCamps in new cities and countries, too. Attending the WordCamp Tokyo was an amazing experience for us.

We love WordCamps, I think they are amazing community events for people to come together and connect in person, who normally would just meet online.
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Do you think that WordPress is the best CMS for beginners? Is there any particular feature you would like to see in the next WordPress release?

I think it always depends what you want to do and what kind of website you want to have. I think for blogging and small business websites WordPress is the best for beginners as well. Regarding online shops for instance, I think there are easier solutions for beginners, so it really depends. Having a multilingual website with Elmastudio ourselves, we would love to see this as a standard feature in WordPress instead of having to use a plugin. As theme designers, we would also love to see more opportunities in the Customizer. We like the customizer, but you could do so much more with it and WordPress by default is still a bit limited in this regard compared to other platforms.

How hard was to follow your dreams? Most people found this way of living not so secure and “normal”. How did you manage to make your own way? Do you have some practical advices for our readers?

This is a good question, somehow we decided at one point that we wanted to see the so called insecure as being actual more secure in the long term. Growing up in Germany this is not a very typical point of view, since you learn that security is very important. Of course this is true in a lot of cases, too, but we think it’s important not to see everything too strict. We also traveled a lot and I think this helped us to see life a little more flexible and more as one big adventure we just luckily and magically happen to be part of.

We also traveled a lot and I think this helped us to see life a little more flexible and more as one big adventure we just luckily and magically happen to be part of.
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Recently you moved from Germany to New Zealand. How hard was to make it happen and what made you do it? How easy was to move your business to a new country? What are the advantages or disadvantages of running business in NZ?

Of course the whole process was also pretty adventurous and it would have been easier not to do it. But we saw this opportunity as a little challenge and just tried it out. It is a lot of paperwork and it took a lot of time, but it’s still so worth it to be able to get to know a different country in more detail, compared to just traveling there. You learn a lot and meet new people and you of course also come across a lot of challenges, like being far away from your family and everything that is familiar and easy for you. Our business has not changed much being in a different country and since New Zealand is a very small country a lot of things are easier here too.

For people who are thinking to move themselves and their business to New Zealand, would you have some advices on how they can make it happen?

Of course everyones situation is different, but I think it’s important that you don’t take everything too serious. Because if you do that it can be very stressful and spoil the whole idea of why you wanted to come in the first place. You need to be very flexible and able to live with some uncertainties. I think seeing the move more as an adventure, helps to deal with all the unknown parts you will need to manage. Also I think there is never a perfect or right time to do something like this. So if you see a chance you should just do it and start and then you can figure out the rest step by step along the way.

I think it’s important that you don’t take everything too serious.
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How hard was to choose what you want to do in your life? Did you have some other serious interests that could have become your daily job?

At the time we started web design and WordPress themes it was the most natural thing, so it was not a real decision between two things. But of course your interests develop and we also could see ourselves doing something else, maybe additionally in the future.

We are moving now a little bit to your personal life, if you don’t mind ;). Today a lot of people experience some kind of physical or mental health problems caused by their work. Did you ever experience some kind of burnout by taking too much work and not taking care about yourself? What have you learned from it and do you have some advice on how to better cope with these situations?

Yes, I totally know what you mean. I wouldn’t say that I ever experiences a complete burnout, but I definitely feel it, if I work too much for a while and don’t take actions to recharge during a work day. And it’s not only the actual work, also stress or worries can really affect your mental and physical health so much. Since we love our work and want continue loving it for a long time, we learned to take active actions towards a better work life balance over the last years. We changed our diet a lot and became vegetarians and later vegans. Now we also experience with eating a lot of raw food, too. We feel the difference in our energy levels, when eating more raw food, especially fruits. Food kind of became a hobby of ours It’s also very important to us to be active and spend time outside and in nature. We try to spend all our free time away from the computer as well. It’s difficult to do, but since we work on the computer all day already, it’s very important I think.

What you like to do in your free time? I have the impression you are in love with nature, vegan food and yoga, is this right? Yes, you are totally right

We love to do all kind of outdoor activities like hiking and everything on the water. We also love to cook, read and travel and we love to explore weekend markets.

You are making your own photos for the theme live demos. Is photography another thing you like to do in your free time?

Yes, we are mostly doing this, since we love photography, although we also use Creative Commons licensed images, since it’s just too much work to take our own images for all our live demos sometimes. Taking pictures is also a hobby of ours, as well as making little videos. We are not very professional, but it’s just a fun thing to do.

What are your plans for the future?

That’s a big question I think not making too many plans and staying flexible is one of our goals. I think we are often too strict with ourselves already, so our biggest plan or goal is to become more open and aware of each and every present moment. Also we want to live our lives healthy and active and do everything we dream of and if somehow possible motivate others to do the same.

I think we are often too strict with ourselves already, so our biggest plan or goal is to become more open and aware of each and every present moment.
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Finally, here’s your chance to freestyle:). Write anything you think could be interesting or useful to our readers.

Since it’s difficult to know what you want or should do, especially in this crowded internet world, where tons of people do interesting things and everyone shares everything, I believe it’s most important to stay true to yourself. It’s hard to find your own way and do the things you want and can do best, instead of just following a certain trend or recommendation. Once you have found your true passion, I think it’s so important to stick with it even if it seems difficult a lot of times, especially in the beginning. But if you know from your heart that it’s what you want to do and I mean not only work-related, but maybe also a way of living or eating a certain diet, never let anyone tell you that you can’t do it or that it’s not the right thing for you. At the end I would also love to share one of our favorite quotes by Seth Godin, who’s blog and books we love:

“When you set down the path to create art, whatever sort of art it is, understand that the path is neither short nor easy. That means you must determine if the route is worth the effort. If it’s not, dream bigger.” ― Seth Godin

I believe it’s most important to stay true to yourself.
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Ellen Bauer & Manuel Esposito

A web designers, WordPress theme developers and bloggers at Elmastudio

Twitter: @ellenbauer | Website: Elmastudio | Twitter: @manuelesposito

We don’t mind if you share it !

Free Food Stock Photos – third collection of our own food photos that can be used for any purpose, personal or commercial
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Free Food Stock Photos – Part 1 | Free Food Stock Photos – Part 2